RUNNING (WO)MAN

Yep, that's me! I know, I hate running, but I decided that I need to get into shape, so I'm running since it's one of the most convenient work outs you can do. Throw on the shoes and go! Don't have to drive anywhere or wait for a particular time... you can, to quote Nike, just do it!

Anyhow, in the hopes that it will encourage me to run, I got the Nike+ ipod thing at the suggestion of Gina. I did not buy the Nike shoes to go with it, however. My thinking is... i work for a shoe company, I'll find a way to alter the insole on my own. Well, i haven't tried altering the insole yet, but I did use the ipod transmitter. I just tucked it into my shoe laces. This worked for the most part, but it did pop out towards the end of my run, so I actually had to stop and backtrack to look for it. Maybe i'll create something to hold it and secure it to my shoe laces, you know, put the old science degree to work. =P

On Wednesday, I started Pilates again. It doesn't look hard, but it really is difficult, and I think it works my lower abs much harder than any crunches that I learned from my old trainer. I also think it's just fun working with the reformer. I don't know what it is with me and gadgets.

Then, in my effort to keep up the whole working out thing, I made grand plans for my tennis day. I went through 2 buckets on forehands, one on serves, another on backhands... my dad even decided I needed to change to a one-handed back hand, so that was an extra work out. However, when I was about to practice returning serves, my left calf cramped up, and I literally just dropped to the ground. It even hurts til today! This may put a cramp (hehe get it?) in my running schedule. (bahaha I made a funny =P)

And finally, totally unrelated to the work out efforts... I got to go to the Laker game tonight! Woohoo. I was in the same building as David Beckham - and I did not have my camera. Darn darn darn! I even remember thinking, put the camera in the bag, just in case... and I still left without it. I would have had a decent shot at a good photo too, since we were in the front row of our section and he was on the floor to the right. Oh well. Anyhow, it was a fun game and cool to hang with Jeff, Young Mi and Dennis again. The game was a little too close for comfort, but the Lakers won, so all is well.

BIG (TENNIS) BALLERS

So at the tournament we had a special parking pass and got to park closer to the gate. We were in the same lot as valet. They call tennis and golf "country club" sports and if you saw the cars in the lot, you'd have thought you were at some fancy schmancy country club. Seriously, you'd think they were giving Bentleys away somewhere. Maybe that's the one sale e-mail I didn't get. Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Mercedeses, Porches, and even a Maybach complete with chauffer... but I bet none of those cars would be able to make it 216,000 miles like my beloved Toyota Camry.

BACK FOR MORE!

That's right. As if one day in the sweltering heat wasn't enough, I went back to Indian Wells today to watch the finals. This time with my aunt. She and my uncle were actually supposed to go, but he got called away on business, so I got to be the lucky one to go in his place. Because today... there was an air-conditioned box suite and court-side seats. We still had the tickets to the seats my dad and I had yesterday... you know, the ones out in the hot, hot sun - great view, 3rd degree burns. =P We didn't bother with those seats today. We stayed in the suite the whole time with the free food and drinks. I think I gained 5 pounds watching tennis. I actually would sit out side to watch the tennis but my aunt never stepped foot outside the air conditioned suite. She doesn't like the heat, so it's a good thing we didn't have to sit in our seats. She did make the sacrifice when we got the chance to sit in the court side seats right behind the baseline on the deuce side. That's a nice view. The whole time I kept thinking, I wonder if I could hit a ball coming at me at that speed. Probably not. =P

Meanwhile my aunt and uncle's friends sat in the section we were in yesterday. Luckily I had my umbrella to lend them. I told you, I was prepared for the heat this time. I had white linen pants, an umbrella, and a towel, which came in handy for my shoulders when we sat court side since I had on a tube top.

Anyhow, I posted pictures. Some are clearer than others, because some were taken court side and some are from the suite:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kejercito/PACLIFEOPENFINALS

BURNIN HOT!

Today I went to see the men's semi finals at the Pac Life Open in Indian Wells with my dad. Holy heck, it was about 90 degrees and we were in the sun. For some reason, I thought we would be on the shady side, but I was wrong. We got the tickets for free from my aunt and uncle, so we can't complain, but OMG we were roasted by the end of the day and YES, we did remember to bring the sun block, hats and sunglasses. I think I burned my feet because at first I forgot to put sunblock on them at first. I was a big walking grease spill with all the sunblock I had on. I ended up buying some new flip flops in one of the village pavillions (along with a really cute tennis skirt) and a towel so my dad could cover his legs since his were burned worse than mine. At one point before I bought the towel, he came back from the bathroom with a bunch of paper towels and he had tucked one into each leg of his shorts to cover up his legs, and then wrapped it around one arm to cover up his arm. He looked so dorky. I kept waiting for them to put him up on the big screen. Go figure... he's already tanner than I am and he still burns faster. I generally have to burn before I can tan, so there's hope for a tan tomorrow. =P Just kidding. I'll be ready for tomorrow. I'm gonna bring an umbrella, a towel, maybe wear some long pants if I can find my linen pants and another tub of sun block. They'll think Lawrence of Arabia came to watch.

Pictures from today's semis: http://picasaweb.google.com/kejercito/PACLIFEOPENMENSSEMIS

p.s. I'm a dork and didn't realize I had my camera set on the lowest resolutions. I've fixed it for tomorrow's matches though, so they won't be so darn small.

p.p.s. Happy Easter everyone!

ROLLIN TO THE O.C.

So the last couple of weekends, I actually spent down in OC. The weekend before last, I had dinner with Val and Edz at Ra, then checked out Auld Dubliners, where we met up with the gang... It was pretty cool - lots of people - I suppose because there aren't a lot of those places in the OC. However, some of the people looked underage... and some looked like their grandpa. The great part was when one of the girls, principal at one of the Irvine high schools actually spotted a student at the bar. DOH! You know he was in trouble come Monday morning. (She told me he would be. hehe)

Then last weekend, I went down to OC both Friday and Sunday. Friday night for Bill's 35th and Sunday for Patrick's 40th. Bill's was at Flip Flops in Costa Mesa. It's always fun to hang out with the whole gang. Afterwards, we went to Goat Hill Pub to hang out for a bit which was cool. I actually managed to stay up til 1:30! Oooh aaah. Wow.

They had Patrick's birthday at the house. Of course it's a beautiful day everywhere but on their hill. They kept talking about rain that weekend, but we didn't see any. I went to pick up the cake at King's Hawaiian and it was lovely from Long Beach to Torrance and back. And then we're driving down and we see dark ominous clouds. I think, hopefully it's over on the other side, but no. Those dark rain clouds are over their community and right when we are about to exit... it starts to sprinkle... then rain. Uh oh. Luckily the caterers were ready with tents. (Great bbq by the way. AWESOME beans - and I am not a bean person.) it was a bummer for the kids since they couldn't play in the bouncy house, but otherwise it wasn't too bad. They had tables and a little flat screen set up in the garage, and plenty of chairs around the house. I mostly lingered in the kitchen near the food and sangria. Old habits are hard to break after all.

Some pictures from the birthdays:

Bill's birthday at Flip Flops

Patrick blowing out his candles with the family

AT&T v. T-MOBILE

The co-workers and I all have a different kind of pda-smart phone. Jeff has an iPhone and Heath a BB Curve on AT&T, David a Palm on Sprint, and I have a BB Pearl on T-Mo.

When I head out to Italy for work, I don't have to make any calls or arrangements with T-Mo, all i have to do is turn on the phone and it will search for the nearest available network. When I was on vacation in Europe, I was able to get T-Mo in all of the countries as T-Mo, I believe, is originally a German company. Anyhow, I use my phone to text, to check and return emails, to chat on google and yahoo messenger, and genearlly surf the net. I was in Italy for one week and my cell bill came out to $90. My regular monthly bill is $60. Not too bad. It was the yahoo messenger that really did me in I think. They get charged as texts I believe.

Heath is about to go on vacation to Mexico. He calls AT&T. They tell him he has to pay $30/month charge to get international calls (allll the way in Mexico) and you have to sign up for 1 year! PLUS, all calls are $1 a minute. WTH! And let's not even talk about the data charges.


Then Jeff comes up to me and is like, "OMG Kris, my cell bill from when we were in Italy was $500!" Mind you, he was only in Italy for 2 days and he was careful not to use his iphone to check emails, etc. because they had told him it would be expensive. When he takes a closer look at his bill, there are data plan charges on his phone... for when he's actually on the plane flying out to Italy, unless there is some sort of time difference issue. Either way, he's either getting screwed by an error on their part, or by their crazy data plan.

I think I will stick with my t-mo.

SHOE TIP #1

When I was in Vegas, Tracy asked me if I had a suggestion because she was having trouble with a shoe that kept slipping off her heel. She said she had added some padding to the back but it wasn't helping. It's not likely to help because it will only lift your heel higher in the shoe. However, what you can do to help is add a little padding to the front of your shoe, underneath the ball of your foot. This will actually help push your foot back a little so that it comes into contact with the back of the shoe and make it more secure without making the front of the shoe too tight.

A POEM...

composed whilst on the 710:

Heinous and horrid traffic is today
For what reason I cannot say
The cars go slow
As if they had nowhere to go
Heinous and horrid I say

WIMP

This past Sunday, we (the salad queens and I) had a belated birthday dinner for Vuong (whose birthday is actually in February). We met up at Vuong's and drove down to Laguna to La Casa del Camino for dinner at K'ya. It was an absolutely gorgeous day to be out by the beach. The plan was to grab dinner, then head up to the rooftop for drinks.

During dinner, we were catching up with each other and they asked me about Milan. I told them about my trip and then one of them asked if I spoke Italian while I was there. I have a bunch of Italian lessons on my ipod. I've had them for years now since I tried to learn Italian before the family vacation to Italy a few years back. I managed to learn some of the basics back then and I continued with the lessons before this trip. I even made flash cards (I know, what a geek!) But here's the thing... I get to Italy and I am waaaaay to embarrassed to even try it.

I think maybe if I had an actual teacher or someone I could run my Italian by first and tell me if I was totally off or not, I would have felt more comfortable trying it out, but I didn't. I took French for four years in high school and I've felt comfortable enough to try it out when in Paris, but not so the Italian. I picture in my head the waiters running to the kitchen and sharing with the other staff what the lame American just said with a horrible Italian accent. Then they all laugh til they cry. =( I suppose I could have just tried and really, when would I see these people again? But no, I totally wimped out.

CRACKING THE WHIP

Little Charlotte says:

PICTURES

from Milan:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kejercito/MILAN?authkey=MNzWs2pLh4g

MY PRECIOUS

I'm sure we are all aware of how the U.S. economy has been tanking lately and how our dollar is worth, oh... crap. When I got to Italy, I changed $300 and got back 157 Euro. That's it. Holy moly. From then on, I tried to use credit cards assuming I'd get a better exchange rate. One day, I woke up and all of the Italian morning news headlines were about how the dollar pretty much sucked. In one day, the dollar dropped about 10 cents in exchange and it was all over the news.

Anyhow, back to my precious... What is it? My shampoo and conditioner. The hotel I stayed at, Hotel Zurigo, for some reason didn't provide shampoo and conditioner, although they provided you a dental kit, shower gel and shoe sponges. Ironically, I took all the shampoos and conditioners I took from Mandalay Bay out of my luggage right before I left, thinking I'd get some in my room. Go figure. So I try to make do with using the shower gel for everything, even though it leaves me smelling a bit manly. Italian manly. But really, I can only do this for so long and I go in search of shampoo and conditioner.

La Rinascente, a department store beside the Duomo has some of this stuff, but they are the equivalent of Neiman Marcus, and i just need little ones to last me during my trip. CHEAP little ones. So I try a pharmacy down the way. Italian pharmacies are different from American pharmacies. They have their drugs, lotion, and they have a butt load of anti-aging stuff... and that's it. So, desperate, I pick up some Kiehl's because they have smaller travel-sized bottles. 13 euro for shampoo. 16 for conditioner. If those were dollars I'd already think them expensive, but in euros? OMG. I check my credit card charges online... $40 for my travel-sized shampoo and conditioner. GEEEEEZ! You know I brought whatever was left back with me. I'm going to treasure them foreeeevvver.

Now, you may think the Europeans think it's great that the dollar is low and the euro is high, but they don't. We talked to various people and it makes life harder for them. If Americans can't afford things in euros, then they don't come out for vacations or business trips and they don't buy things or do business with Europeans. The low dollar has hurt them and their businesses as well.

LIAR LIAR!

I was just scrolling through the old posts and I realized I totally lied! In one post, I let everyone know we were having dinner at the Palazzo in Las Vegas and I'd tell you about it, but I never did. So here goes:

We had dinner at Dos Caminos in the Palazzo. Dos Caminos is a Mexican restaurant on the ground floor of the casino. We had reservations for 7:30 and when we got there, the bar had a long line. Since we had dinner reservations, we were able to skip it. I have to tell you, the place was totally happening! They had the loud music going, lots of people at the bar. I know we all thought, "Cool, we'll hang out here after dinner!"

I think the best part of our dinner was the service. Excellent service! The food however, was just ok, especially for what it costs. As I joked with my co-worker - back in L.A., I can get Mexican food for $2, and it's Mexican food made by Mexicans for Mexicans (viva King Taco!). However, like I said, you can't beat the service or the ambience. The drinks weren't bad either, but skip the margarita flight. It's like shots of 3 different margaritas. No point in that. Really, just get yourself 3 margaritas. Their El Camino (like a Cadillac) margarita is pretty good.

So we finally finish dinner and head out, only to realize that the once happenin bar was totally empty! Where'd everybody go? Well, we had no idea, so we headed back to Mandalay, to the Foundation Room. The Foundation Room is members only, but don't worry, you're not missing out on much. It's got a great view of the strip, but other than that, it's not different from any other bar or lounge in Vegas.

MY F1 CAB DRIVER

My trip home from Italy began with a flight scheduled at 8 am from Milan Malpensa to London Heathrow. When I arrived, I actually just took an airport shuttle bus for 6 euro, but since I had to be at the airport by 6 am (and it takes at least 40 minutes to get there) I had the hotel schedule a taxi for me at 5:15 a.m.

I come out at 5:10 a.m. so I can wait for the cab driver, but he's already there. Great! I love promptness. He puts my stuff in the station wagon and we head out. I'm reading all the street signs and making sure he's actually taking me in the direction of the airport, rather than looking to rob me and dump me in some random hood. Anyway, we're moving in the right direction, and one of the things I notice is that there's actually LOTS of people out in this one neighborhood. I think, wow, these Italians are early risers! No... we drive a little further and I see a club called Limelight. They're party animals! Partying til 5 in the morn. Wow. I remember when I could do that (a loooong time ago).

So we finally get on the highway or autostrada and my cab driver turns into a formula one driver. I think in his mind, he's driving a Ferrari at Monza. So I'm looking at the speed, and he's going about 150/kph - approx 90 mph! He'd go even faster than that at times, while playing with his cool navi/stereo display screen. At one point I thought we were going to hit a divider since the highway split in two. Now, I'm generally ok going 90-100 mph - I've driven to Vegas - but not while anyone was playing with the little display. And not only was he speeding, he wasn't always staying in his lane. Sometimes he'd drift into the next lane and just straddle two. My palms were sweaty and I actually had to pray to God for my safe arrival.

We finally arrive at the airport (woohoo!) and I ask how much. Jeff had told me it would cost me around 90, the hotel guys told me 75, so I had set aside 100 just in case. I see the meter display and it says 127. I nearly have a heart attack since I only have 106, until he tells me 95. Whew! (It's supposed to be a flat rate to and from the airport, kind of like NYC.) I tip him and have 6 euros left to buy bread and water. I am a lucky girl.

HOME AT LAST!

Halllooo! Yes, I'm finally home. Yippee! By Saturday night, I was so ready to go home. Get away from the second hand smoke and scooter smog. Saturday was my tourist day. I walked from Hotel Zurigo to the Piazza di Mercanti then down Via Dante to Castello Sforzesco. The Piazza di Mercanti and Via Dante are quaint pedestrian streets with cafes and shops along the way.

Via Dante will lead you to Castello Sforzesco which was initially begun as a castle but later turned into a fort due to changes of power. I walked through the Castello and into Parco Sempione which is directly adjacent behind the Castello. They have little fairs set up in several different locations of the park. Since it was Saturday, there were lots of families out, as well as people walking their dogs. There were even newlyweds taking photos.

From the park, I headed over to the church Santa Maria della Grazie for my 1:15 reservation to see the Last Supper by Leonardo DaVinci. If you plan to go see this, know that you will need a reservation. You can make one online, or do like I did and asked concierge to handle it. Don't expect a big museum. You are essentially let into one empty room after another until you get into the section of the church where the painting is located. From there, you exit. However, it is still an awesome experience to see something so old endure through time. And, when you step to the back of the church and look at the painting, you kind of feel like you're actually in the same room as Jesus since the painting is so large and does a good job of using perspective.

After seeing the Last Supper, I walked down Via Magenta back towards the Duomo. i stopped for lunch along the way and tried out some yogurt gelato. It was pretty good. A little tangier than topfen but still good.

Anyhow, I'll post more later, but for now, I think I'm losing the fight against jet lag. Good night!